Return to Sender
by Amelia Island
Summary: Lea decides to send Kairi's letters off-world, breaking the fragile bond of trust between them. No good deed goes unpunished... and no letter goes undelivered, as it turns out. (Axel/Lea/Kairi) (Akukai)
1. Chapter 1: Betrayal by Mail

**Cover by Huvus.**

* * *

 **Return to Sender**

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 **Chapter 1:**

 **Betrayal by Mail**

Sometimes, the Secret Forest was a little _too_ adept at keeping its secrets.

"Where are you...?" Kairi murmured as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I know I left you around here somewhere."

The petite redhead crouched by the boulder that served as her usual perch, scanning the shifting green shadows for any sign of it. Every shadow that came up empty filled her with an increasing sense of dread. The steely determination that drove her search all afternoon was about to give way to dismay.

She could have _sworn_ she left it here. She'd stake her Keyblade on it. But there's no way it could have moved on its own, unless —

"Looks like I'm not the only one forgetting something."

Kairi turned, and rose so quickly she collided with the towering figure leaning over her. "Ow!" She took an unsteady step back, rubbing her forehead. _Total Sora move._ When she shook her vision clear, she saw Lea was the one who had discovered her. Who else? The man's hands hovered near her, almost as if he had expected to catch her in a fall. Now that she had regained some of her composure, he planted one on his hip and gestured vaguely to her brow with the other.

"Knock something loose?" He grinned sharp enough to take a bite out of more inferior smiles. Kairi shook her head again. "So, what'd you lose?"

"My notebook," she explained. She sank down unhappily on the boulder and drew her knees together. "Axel, I could have sworn I left it here. You haven't seen it, have you?"

She was half-expecting him to come to her rescue then, to draw it from behind his back with the same sleight of hand he used to produce ice cream, puffs of flame, and the occasional encouraging thumbs-up. Instead, the man averted his eyes, and raised a sheepish hand to scratch the back of his head.

Her own eyes narrowed a fraction. She knew that tell all too well after growing up with Sora. "Axel?" she prompted. With more desperation than she had been conducting her search with, she now desperately wanted to be wrong.

"I told you to use that name, not to wear to out."

 _"Where_ are my letters?" Was this some sort of game he was playing? Did he intend to keep them from her for her to win back from him during their next match?

"I sent them for you." He turned back to her now, a willing party to her interrogation. "I gave them to Merlin to get to Sora. May take a while, but he said he knows a courier the king trusts."

"You _what?"_ Kairi sprang up from her boulder and braced like a startled cat. "Axel, please tell me you didn't!"

"I'm not in the habit of lyin' these days," he said coolly.

"But you _are_ in the habit of stealing other people's personal possessions?"

"You wrote those letters to Sora, didn't you? How much of a personal possession are they really?" Lea crossed his slender arms and looked at her. Her temper seemed to have enflamed his own; still, there was the ghost of guilt hovering about his eyes. _He knows,_ Kairi thought. _He knows what he did was wrong, but he still won't cop to it._ "The way I see it, I'm doing you a favor."

"Is that so?" she exclaimed. "Well, the next time you think about going out of your way to do me a favor — don't!"

"What's with you?" Lea demanded as his posture fell apart. "Don't you get it? If those are the true feelings of your heart, you shouldn't hold any of them back! Sora could disappear at any moment, forever! You think you'd ever forgive yourself if that happened?"

The clearing froze over in a stunned silence. Lea stood poised like he was about to attack: shoulders humped, arms flung wide, chest heaving in the wake of his outburst. He blinked, and his eyes appeared to switch settings. He straightened. There was too much pain to process, too many hard truths, but Kairi's focus was overridden by a sudden, terrible suspicion.

"Did you _read_ them?" she asked quietly.

"I…" He had the grace to look guilty again. "Only the first one."

"You're unbelievable!" she cried.

His eyes narrowed. "Which reminds me: if you're scared of me, you should just tell me. I'd try not to hang around so often."

And there it was: her private words, her private feelings, flung back in her face. Maybe the explosive side of his temper wasn't as dangerous as the one he kept hidden from her. But her temper, so rarely earned, could be dangerous, too.

Kairi picked up a rock and hurled it at his head. Lea dodged out of the way, but the wind of its passage ruffled his hair. All those long lonely days skipping stones on Destiny Island proved practicable after all. She seized another and flung it full-force. This time, Lea caught the missile one-handed. He let the stone drop when she moved to stalk past him.

"Kairi! Wait!" He snagged her by the arm. "I'm..."

She wanted to shake him off and flee to the beach. She wanted back all that was familiar: the sand, the sea, the sky, and a sunset that, when it ignited the horizon, didn't remind her of a man she thought she had come to know.

"Don't," she said. "I told you, I don't want any more apologies."

He had held her like this against her will once before. She _knew_ he remembered. Lea let go of her arm. Leather creaked as his fingers curled into his palm.

"I know you aren't a bad guy, Axel," she whispered. "You've proven that. But sometimes, you just aren't a very good friend."

His intake of breath told Kairi her words had stung worse than any stone. She almost wished she could take them back… but Lea was the reason she couldn't take any of it back. How could a man who had risked everything to protect his friends still hurt the last one he had left? She gripped the spot over her heart, then raised her chin and started forward. She quit the clearing without a backward glance.

Her letters were out there now, her secret words and sentiments cast into the black vastness of space. It was a little like sending off a message in a bottle; only this time, she had no idea where the moon-pulled tides might take them...

Or where they might wash up.

* * *

 **Damn, top ten anime** **betrayals.**


	2. Letter I: You Were Lost Once Too

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 **Return to Sender**

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 **Letter I:**

 **"You were lost once too."**

He was off to see a wizard double-time.

Lea swept along the forested path, the tails of his coat snapping past bushes and stirring up fallen leaves. He cut an unusual black figure in the bucolic woodland; he stood out. He supposed he always had, from his days as Lea, then Axel, then back again. Hell, he was still mixed up about who he was, and inviting Kairi to call him _Axel_ wasn't making it any easier to figure out.

 _Kairi._ How could he have been so stupid? He had betrayed the trust she never should have placed in him—a trust he had craved almost more than anything from the moment he first laid new eyes on her in Yen Sid's study. Wasn't she the one he owed the most to? The one who held the key to his redemption? After all he had put her through, to mess up so royally now was—

Lea clenched his teeth. He could feel the fire inside him sending up solicitous, smoke-like whispers, begging to come wanted to fling a hand out and vent what threatened to immolate him on the inside, but he knew he couldn't. One false move and this forest would go up like a tinderbox. That was part of his training: learning to keep a lid on his temper. Unlike normal people, when _he_ lost it, he tended to do irreversible damage to whatever was in his vicinity.

And he had done that once already today.

Kairi's look of betrayal rose in his mind again. Why couldn't he just forget the expression she had been wearing? For a man fixated on memory, he thought this was the one recollection he could stand to lose track of. It dogged him, _haunted_ him, the way she had looked.

It was the same look she had given him when they first met. Back when he was still with the Organization. That look of devastation that his word was meaningless when he revealed he wasn't all he said he was.

Well, he wouldn't stand for it; not in this life. He wouldn't be the villain again. He stripped the leaves from a branch he passed and cast them back behind him; they fell to cinders in his wake.

"Something troubling you, my boy?"

Lea stopped, revolving in surprise. Merlin was out of the house today, seated on a mossy log, one spindly ankle crossed over one knobby knee. It was a _very_ revealing way to sit when one wore only a robe. The amusing picture was something Lea would have mentioned to Kairi later, just to hear her scandalized laugh and receive a playful push. _If_ they were still on speaking terms. Thoughts of the girl made his fist curl at his side.

"You knew I'd be here," Lea guessed.

Merlin smiled, and his spectacles gleamed. "I say, would you mind?" He had his pipe out, and Lea obliged him. The redhead reached forward, flaring his fingers in the direction of the clay bowl, and ignited the contents. Merlin sighed contentedly and took an appreciative puff.

"You could have done that yourself," Lea noted. He sat down wearily on a boulder across from the wizard.

"More communal this way," Merlin replied. He sucked on his pipe and blew one smoke ring, then another. Lea waved a hand, transforming them into flaming, wheeling chakram. The wizard chuckled. "Dwelling on the past, are we?"

"It's what I'm good at," Lea stated. "Practically all we did back in the Organization."

"I'm led to believe you did quite a bit more than that." Merlin pointed with the stalk of his pipe.

Lea groaned. "Got it memorized, have you?"

"I'm not here to dredge up the ghosts of the past." The wizard waved, and the phantom chakram spinning between them dissipated. "On the contrary, I can see it's the present that most troubles you."

"I messed up." Lea held his hands out away from his body as if he couldn't trust them. "When I gave you those letters to mail..."

"Kairi's letters," Merlin said. Lea nodded.

"Any chance you still have 'em on you?"

"I'm afraid I already sent them along with the king's courier."

Lea groaned and collapsed forward, catching himself on his knees. "What am I going to do? I thought I was doin' the right thing here!"

"Sometimes, the right course of action for one person isn't the right course for another," Merlin explained. "An easy mistake for anyone to make, regardless of the age of their heart. Harder still to remedy."

"Something tells me all the sea salt ice cream in the world isn't gonna cut it this time," Lea muttered.

"You could always try apologizing to the girl," Merlin suggested.

Lea turned his head aside. "That's the last thing she'd want."

"Hmmm." The wizard scratched the side of his conical hat with one spidery finger. "I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you, my boy. On the matter of women, I admit to still being something of student myself."

"That's the understatement of the century!" squawked a voice.

Lea raised his face from the perdition of his hands. A squat little owl had alighted on the branch beside Merlin on the log; or had he been there all along, slumbering unnoticed? He might have easily been mistaken for a clot of dead leaves if it wasn't for the burning disapproval of his yellow eyes.

"On the matter of women, _mum's the word,"_ Merlin said with a significant look at his companion.

"On the matter of women, Mim's the word!" the owl retorted.

"Oh, get out of here, you!" Merlin brandished his pipe in the owl's direction; the bird craned away from the smoke, but didn't seem obliged to take off from his perch. "I knew I should have left you at home, Archimedes!"

"Mim's the word," Lea repeated as he rose. He had no idea what he was agreeing to, but the flustered expression on the wizard's face was too good not to prolong. "Be seein' you."

The wizard's protestations followed him back out into the forest.

* * *

Kairi was in none of the usual spots. Lea hunted for her everywhere, all the while trying to appear as if he wasn't looking for her at all. The sun set on the Secret Forest, its rays burnishing the canopy in molten gold, until the leaves rattled and shimmered like coins. He spent the twilight hours that followed alone.

Dusk set in, and the stars started to peek out one by one. Lea located a high tree branch near the overlook that looked like it would support his weight and settled back into it. He didn't feel like pitching the tent, not tonight. He was exhausted, yet somehow impervious to real sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face; every time he opened them, she was nowhere near.

"I hate this." Lea dropped his head back and plastered a gloved hand to his face to blot out the view. "How am I supposed to get any training done if _she_ won't talk to me?"

Something scratched fervently at the base of the trunk below him. Lea ignored it, until a low, escalating whine made him pull his hand back with an irritated sigh. "D'you mind?" he called down to his visitor. He craned sideways to look and nearly fell out of the tree. "What?" He braced himself against the trunk at the last second and did a double-take. "You again? Who let you off your leash?"

Below him, a yellow dog pawed furiously at the tree, shaving away bark beneath its claws. Lea groaned and righted himself, then dropped back down to earth. A few exploratory sniffs later and the dog was wagging its thin tail back and forth like a switch. It was a markedly different reception than the one he had been given last time. "Pluto, right?" Lea stooped to get a look at the dog's collar, then realized it was holding something between its teeth. "What you got there?

Pluto laid the folded note at his feet and leapt back, wiggling his hindquarters harder. Lea frown thoughtfully as he picked up the letter. The paper was unsealed, and it fell open in his hand. There was no addressor, and no addressee, but he recognized the penmanship instantly.

 _Kairi._

* * *

 _I'm thinking about you again today._

 _I'm not sure where you are right now, or if I'd even have the courage to tell you—but I am._

 _I know you must feel lonely sometimes. Kind of a strange thing to say, isn't it?_

 _We have more friends now, fighting for the Light, than we ever have before…_

 _... but there are so many we've lost along the way._

 _I know we can retrieve them_ _—_ _just as we can reclaim the pieces of ourselves that have been lost._

 _Because nothing's ever really lost. I know that now._

 _You were lost once too, remember?_

 _I feel lucky that we found one another again._

* * *

"This…" Lea blinked and drew back from the page like a dreamer rousing after an unexpected slumber. "This isn't for me. You got your addresses crossed, pal. This letter is for Sora."

The dog raised its ear in recognition, then cocked its head. "You know, Sora!" Lea gestured toward his head to indicate an impractical haircut, then gave up with a frustrated sigh. He tried to ape swinging a keyblade before realizing that, too, was no longer an established difference between himself and the boy. "Jeez. All right, look, I'll get this where it needs to go. Just… good dog. Sort of."

He patted Pluto awkwardly, and the dog looked thrilled to have miscarried its mission so successfully. It yipped and chased its tail in a quick circle, then galloped off down the path. Lea sighed and scratched the back of his head. He looked at the piece of paper, a shock of pale, square color in the gloom.

He knew what he had to do.


	3. Chapter 2: The Secret Sea

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 **Return to Sender**

* * *

 **Chapter 2:**

 **The Secret Sea**

At the edge of the forest lapped a sea, and at the edge of that sea knelt a girl. She drew faces in the sand, circling with a stick she had found, reaching down to erase a detail that displeased her. There were a lot of details that displeased her. Kairi's artistic skills hadn't improved much since leaving the island.

She paused in her portraits to look out to sea. She wondered if she was the first to look. She wondered if these living silver-gilt waters touched the shores of Destiny Islands. True, she was an interworld castaway, but those islands would always be home. Her _friends_ would always be home.

But friendship was proving harder to navigate these days than even the ways between worlds.

"Whatcha got there?"

Kairi turned, peeking past the curtain of shorn red hair she was still adjusting to. Night had fallen, but that didn't mean the light was gone; the moon (the secret moon?) hovered close over the water, bigger than she could ever remember a moon being, as if Merlin had hung it there himself. She saw Lea's tall figure in silhouette, his mane of hair framing a pale, pensive face. His voice, as always, was cavalier, but it didn't match the expression she saw.

She rose from her crouch, and turned back to consider her drawing. "Nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing," he offered. "Take it from a guy who knows."

"It will be, soon enough."

Kairi stepped back and allowed an incoming wave to wash her sand slate clean. She had discarded her boots further back along the shore and staked her keyblade into the ground beside them. It's probably how Lea had found her. Then again, even since before they had known each other, he had exhibited an uncanny knack for finding her.

She dropped back onto her haunches, letting the salt wind stir the feathers of her hair as she gazed out to sea. After a moment, she heard the soft sifting of displaced sand as Lea cautiously approached her. "Still mad at me?" he guessed.

"Yes."

"Never known you to be mad at anybody. Guess I should feel special."

The man dropped down into a squat beside her, his longer legs bent and his arms propped atop his knees, his hands left to dangle. He looked like an enormous black grasshopper out of the corner of her eye, or some gargoyle that had washed up there on the beach.

"If you've known me to be mad at nobody," she reflected, "then maybe I've always been a _little_ mad at you."

There was a lull in the conversation as Lea digested this; then he gave an appreciative chuckle, tucking his chin as he shook his head. "Touché. Guess we're finding time to spar today after all."

"I guess so." Her lips quirked as she tried to suppress a smile. She did what she was best at and stared steadfastly out to sea.

"How long you think we've been here? Months?"

"Feels like forever," she admitted. It was impossible to stay angry at him; he was too good at drawing her out. "And it still doesn't feel like enough."

"Hey. We've got time." He leaned a little, almost as if he wanted to nudge shoulders, then he stopped himself. He sighed and flared a hand expressively. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hurry up and forgive me, okay? I got nobody to train with if I ain't got you."

Kairi pressed the seam of her lips together harder to hide her smile. Then, knowing her expression the next instant would give her away, she acted: she swiveled and brought her stick down with a playful _hyah!_ She didn't hold back the force of her swing; after months spent fearful of hurting one another, they had learned to overcome their reservations and give it their all.

To her surprise, Lea's hand was there ready to catch it. He closed over the stick and yanked, absorbing the momentum of her swing. Kairi erupted in a fit of giggles as he pulled her into him. Now she was trapped half-toppled between those absurdly long legs of his, and her laugh was full-throated. "Lea! Let go of me!"

"You let go. You started this." He tugged the stick to try and expedite his victory, but all he managed to do was pull her in against his chest. Kairi went, but the laughter died suddenly in her throat. She blinked and looked up at him. The single blue-green eye in her view stared down, past where the distinctive mark on his cheek used to be, and for a moment Lea looked as startled as she felt. Their two hands were still joined at the stick, but his right had come up to brace her hip. It hovered there, the opposite of steadying.

"Shouldn't start things you can't finish," he said quietly.

Kairi's heart gave an unexpected throb. Her fingers relinquished the stick and she sat back quickly. The sand dug into her bare knees, but she ignored her discomfort. She was still sitting between her friend's legs, but she didn't want to scuttle back like a crab flushed from hiding. That would only draw more attention to their awkward situation.

Whereas this would only drag it out.

"You win, Axel."

"What do I win?" He tossed the stick aside, then sat up. Kairi caught herself against his chest. If she hadn't, they would have brushed again.

"You win... _this!"_ She shoved her fist halfway down his collar and released the fistfull of sand she had covertly collected. Lea cursed as she scrambled away, laughing. The diversion had worked in her favor and made an escape possible; he was too busy plucking his coat collar away from his breastbone and trying to usher the sand out to steal her back.

"You islanders," he muttered as he climbed slowly to his feet. "You sure know how to aggravate a guy."

"It's what we do best," Kairi agreed. They stared at one another a moment, and she shyly tucked a piece of hair back behind her ear.

"Kairi, I…"

"Yes?" She turned to him expectantly, hands clasped behind her back. He gazed at her a long moment. He seemed struck by something, beyond the power of speech. She wondered what he saw. It was too often for her liking that he looked at her and seemed to see something, or someone, else. Was it her posture? The starlight shining silver in her hair? All these things she had once thought her own, she now knew she shared with at least one other. Was Lea trying to reconcile her existence with the existence of another?

Her gaze lowered when she noticed his hand hovering by his pocket. Lea took it away quickly and scratched his head. "Nothin'. I guess I was just… thinking."

"What were you thinking about?"

He wouldn't meet her eyes. "When you said you were scared of me…"

"Axel," she protested.

He held his hand up. "Hear me out. I know you don't want any more apologies. But I just... I promise I won't ever do anything to make you scared of me again. Okay? I'm here to protect you now."

Kairi smiled and pulled her keyblade from the sand. She let it vanish in a swarm of light from her fingertips. "I don't need anyone to protect me anymore. Remember?" But her heart sped all the same at his words.

"We'll protect each other from now on, then," he agreed with a wry twist of a smile. "No more hurting each other except on the practice field. That's what friends do."

"Good." She grinned as his hand returned to his pocket. "So you have to promise not to read any more of my letters to Sora, okay?"

Lea froze. "I..."

"Look!" A streak across the sky pulled her attention away, and Kairi pointed. "A shooting star! You know what that means?"

"Make a wish?" He came to stand beside her, his hand dangling limply at his side.

Kairi shook her head. "Even better than a wish. It could mean a gummi ship. It could mean _Sora._ Maybe he's somewhere out there close, right now!"

"Of course. Sora."

She turned at the odd catch in his voice, and saw the contemplative, faraway look he wore. Maybe he was looking at the heavens the same way she stared out to sea, imagining a faraway place and time where they were all together again. She elbowed him, and he glanced down. She flexed a smile. "Come on, Sparky." It felt like one of the nicknames she would have come up with for her friends back home. "Let's get some sleep. I'm going to beat you twice tomorrow to make up for today."

"In your dreams, Princess." He palmed her head and pulled her in against him. They walked off the beach together; his hand didn't reach for his pocket again.


	4. Letter II: Weak

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 **Return to Sender**

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 **Letter II:**

 **"Weak."**

* * *

 _I want to be strong. But sometimes, being around you makes me feel weak._

* * *

Lea closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose, as if he could banish the words he had just read. Beneath him, he heard the thumping of an eager, expectant tail.

"Don't look at me like that," he muttered. "I didn't mean to read it, okay?"

But of course he had. Even after Kairi had expressly forbid him from reading any more of her letters to Sora, he had taken this latest misplaced missive from Pluto and let his eyes rove across her steady hand. He _had_ read it, and he regretted the betrayal more than he could express. And just when their friendship was finally on the mend...

But maybe it was the Nobody in him, the one who, by definition of what he was, had been friendless for so long, that yearned to know all he could: about feelings, about friendship. About Kairi. He was doing it in the most underhanded way possible, sure, but did the means justify the end result? Was it possible to be a better friend to Kairi by betraying the promise she had asked of him? The promise he had never had the chance to falter on or officially agree to?

Lea stowed the letter inside his pocket and began to walk. Pluto trotted at his heels, tongue lolling, eyes guileless, until he spotted one of the Secret Forest's secret squirrels and galloped off after it with a friendly bark. Left alone on his way to his next destination, Lea couldn't help playing the rest of the letter over in his mind:

* * *

 _I'm not the warrior that you are. I know that._

 _I haven't traveled as far as you or seen what you've seen._

 _But some day I hope to see it all._

* * *

"You will," Lea murmured the affirmation below his breath. "I know you will, Kairi. You made the journey between worlds before any of us. No world is strong enough to hold you."

 _"Who's_ holding who?" a perky voice inquired behind him.

The man froze. "Er..." He revolved in place slowly and dropped his gaze. Kairi beamed up at him, eyes sealed tight, hands laced behind her back.

"Axel?"

"Just... thinking out loud." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Even though it wasn't a lie, he felt duplicitous all the same. "And what are you doin' sneakin' up on a guy? I could've taken you out."

"No you couldn't have!" Kairi chirped brightly. "I'm getting stronger, too, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah. I got it memorized."

The canopy above shed a leaf, which spiraled down and caught in her hair. Without thinking, Lea reached forward to pluck it off. Strands of her red hair caught at it, and caught the sunlight, before drifting back to frame her curious face. For a moment, Lea's breath caught, too. He hadn't expected the thoughtless move to feel so... _intimate._

"Got it." He held the leaf up between pinched fingers in explanation. He was just about to burn it to a cinder when Kairi, apparently anticipating his move, suddenly reached for it.

"Wait!" she protested. She took it gingerly from between his frozen fingers "It's perfect," she explained. She stashed it in her pouch and let the flap drop closed.

Lea was no more illuminated on the subject by this explanation. "You're weird," he chuckled.

Kairi was unperturbed. She tapped her bangs, pointed to the sky, or to him (it was practically the same distance, she was such a shrimp), and winked. "You'll see," she said mysteriously.

"All right," he conceded. "How about if I win today's match, you tell me your secret."

"And what if I win?" Kairi's eyes shone, and he knew she was game for the challenge.

"Whatever you want." Lea crossed his arms as if to say _lay it on me sister._

"All right," she agreed.

"You gonna share with the class?"

Kairi just smiled. They walked together, his hands spaded in his pockets, hers laced behind her back. The days passed much longer here than they did in any of the worlds he had visited previously, but Lea didn't mind the slow progression. So long as he didn't drive Kairi away, he wouldn't have to spend them alone.

His gloved fingertips brushed against the note folded in his pocket. He warred with himself; it wasn't his first moment of confliction that afternoon, and it wouldn't be his last. He should give the letter back to her. He should tell her.

 _Sometimes being around you makes me feel weak._

Why did he keep coming back around to that passage? Why did it resonate with something undefinable within him? Lea knew he wasn't weak. Sure, he may not be as strong as he was when he was a Nobody, yet, but that didn't mean he couldn't hold his own against plenty of threats.

So why did being around this girl make him feel so damn vulnerable? He couldn't seem to stop overthinking. _Everything._

Well, he wouldn't let whatever was wrong with him win out today. If this was a secret Kairi was willing to tell him without him snooping behind her back, then he intended to embrace his chance whole-heartedly—and that meant beating her in the ring.

The arena Merlin had set up for them was little more than a dirt practice field carved out at the center of a clearing. There was a crude bench to one side that the wizard, according to his own nebulous schedule, sometimes occupied during their bouts. Of late the wizard had taken to animating the sandbag and wood cutout Heartless and sending them hurtling after Lea and Kairi as they backed their way around the spinning obstacles. In these exercises, they fought as a team.

Today, they were sparring against each other. The day was warm, so Lea shrugged out if his coat, hooked his arms over his head, and bobbed sideways at the waist to stretch. He averted his eyes from watching Kairi too closely; the girl had already summoned her keyblade and was taking lazy practice swings with one arm.

"Something's gotten into you," he called over to her. "These past few days. You're spunkier."

"I've always been spunky," she replied. She assumed her favored defensive posture as Flame Liberator manifested in his outstretched hand.

"I'll say. From the day we first met, you never made it easy for me."

"Today won't be any different."

Damn, but she lit that fire in him. Lea had half-suspected it of being doused forever now that he was whole again, but every time he faced Kairi in the ring her smack talk rekindled the flame. Who knew a tiny thing like her could throw so much shade? The competitor in him lived for it.

"I won't hold back," he warned her.

"Is that what you've been doing?" Kairi's cheeky grin, accompanied by that little giggle of hers, made something flutter in his chest. His heart.

 _How strange the heart is,_ Lea thought, almost clinically, as he lunged forward and time slowed. He was almost always the aggressor, the first to strike, despite Merlin's emphasis on patience; his patience was attached to a far shorter fuse than Kairi's.

But what of his heart? How had it attached itself to her? Why did the slightest smile send his blood pumping?

Maybe it was the thrill of battle. He's be lying if he didn't admit that he had underestimated Kairi more than once—even after their initial meeting, and after he had returned to himself, Lea had assumed the girl's lack of experience in battle might hold them both back on their training.

But that wasn't the case in the slightest. Kairi was quick—quicker than he was—and as Lea sliced through the air toward her, she dodged to the side, flashing an exhilarated smile that was soon obscured by her shorn hair.

"Hold still!" he hollered after her. Hey, it was worth a shot, right?

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she called back to him. The gust from his next swing rattled the trees around the arena, sending a flurry of leaves blowing over them. Were she any other opponent, he would ignite them all in a storm of dancing embers: he would stand impervious as the cinders stung his opponent like bees, wait until they were blinded and too preoccupied with putting themselves out to defend against his finishing blow.

All this passed through Lea's mind and left just as quickly when he recalled how the leaf had alighted on Kairi's hair earlier. Compounding his distraction was the girl herself; she charged toward him, unflinchingly ready to drive her keyblade home.

And it happened. Just a flash, an impression: a sweep of midnight black hair fanned out like raven's wings, the phantom tinkling of a trench coat's drawstrings.

Lea's posture broke, and he stepped back. Without defenses, he left himself wide open for Kairi's next attack—his weapon went spinning out of his hands as Kairi knocked their blades together. He dropped to a crouch, ready to vault after it… and froze when he felt the cool kiss of steel beneath his chin.

"Give up?" Kairi panted. Her eyes shone, and her smile was self-satisfied. They both knew his answer, but he gave it anyway for posterity.

"I yield."

Kairi deactivated her keyblade and let it dissolve from her fingers. Behind her, his did the same. "Help a loser up?" He extended a hand, thinking take full advantage of his defeat and at least gain a moment with her.

"Axel…"

Something in her tone froze him. His amused expression faded with her own. "What is it?"

The girl gazed at him a long, helpless moment, then shook her head. "Nothing." She tried on her smile again and nearly pulled it off. "It's just that… sometimes I wish you'd see _me_ when you look at me."

"I do see you," he insisted. "Sometimes I see you too much."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked him as she took his hand.

"Maybe it means that skirt of yours is too short." Lea smirked, and earned his ass a swift trip back to earth with his statement.

"Come on, loser." Kairi turned away and sauntered toward the edge of the clearing.

"Where are we going?" Lea groaned as he rose.

"I won our wager, remember?" Kairi beamed a smile over her shoulder. "That means you get to do what _I_ want. Come on."


End file.
